Indian Community Centre, Former Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church Hall, 86 Clifton Street, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT13 1AB

Former Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church Hall, now the Indian Community Centre, 86 Clifton Street, Belfast

This is a former Sunday school and church hall, built between 1888 and 1889 to designs by Belfast architect James John Phillips (1841/42–1936) for Alderman James Carlisle. It forms part of the Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church complex on the south side of Clifton Street and is now in use as the Indian Community Centre. Together with the adjoining church and connecting cloister building, it constitutes a significant architectural group both locally and within the wider context of Belfast.

Architectural Overview

The building is a multi-bay, two-storey structure with attic, built in a Gothic Revival style to match the adjoining church. It is rectangular on plan with an advanced entrance tower, set on an elevated site and enclosed to the street by decorative iron railings and gates on a limestone plinth wall with red sandstone piers and tapered capstones.

Roofs are steeply pitched in natural slate with roll-moulded terracotta ridge tiles, set behind slightly raised gables with roll-moulded stone coping and poppy-head finials. Rainwater goods are original cast iron with some replacement steel sections. The walling is coursed rock-faced limestone ashlar with red sandstone courses, weathered buttresses, and a limestone plinth course with sandstone chamfered trim. Windows are predominantly pointed-headed lancets arranged in groups, with stepped red sandstone frames, hood mouldings, splayed sills, and some original leaded coloured glazing.

Front Elevation

The front elevation comprises a central gable with an entrance tower to its left, an additional lower gable further to the left of the tower, and a single-bay two-storey section to the right of the central gable.

The single-bay gable to the left is flanked by gableted weathered buttresses and has an oculus to the gable. Paired lancets rise to the first floor and a group of five lancets lights the ground floor, all retaining original leaded coloured glazing and continuous sill courses.

The advanced entrance tower is square on plan, transitioning via weathered broaches to a truncated octagonal form. It houses the principal entrance. The octagonal parapet is built in red sandstone with panelled recesses containing quatrefoil piercings, weathered splayed sills, and truncated colonettes, all rising from a continuous string course. A sexfoil opening with leaded glazing sits at the middle stage. The entrance doorcase is shallow-gabled with a poppy-head finial and is flanked by a pair of gableted piers. The door opening is pointed-headed and compound-arched, fitted with double-leaf vertically-sheeted hardwood doors with decorative iron furniture and a corbelled lintel cornice with an infilled overlight. The doors open onto a concrete-paved platform and steps enclosed by original cast-iron railing and a partially intact standard lamp.

The central gable is framed to the right by a three-stage weathered buttress surmounted by an octagonal finial with trefoil blind panels and a conical weathered top. An oval opening to the gable has timber louvres and a hood moulding, with a further pair of oculi below featuring quatrefoil carvings and hood mouldings. Tripartite lancet windows to the first floor have compound moulded surrounds, slender colonettes, and original leaded coloured glazing. A series of lancets spans the entire ground floor, the central six with coloured leaded glazing and the outer pairs blind.

The single-bay section to the right has angled three-stage buttresses to the corner surmounted by a pinnacle, as per the principal gable. It has a parapet wall with moulded coping and a decorative string course with rose nail mouldings. Tripartite lancet window openings sit at first-floor level and six-light lancets at ground floor, all with original leaded coloured glazing.

Side and Rear Elevations

The south side elevation almost abuts the adjoining building. The rear elevation is symmetrical and cement rendered, with a central gable abutted by a lower gabled projection. An oval timber-louvred panel sits at the apex with a continuous hood moulding. A pair of oculi formed in red brick flank the gabled projection and contain leaded coloured glazing. The sections to either side each have a rendered brick chimney stack with terracotta pots. The gabled projection has a tripartite window opening at ground level with coloured leaded glazing.

The north side elevation comprises a triple-height gable to the left and a two-storey section to the right, three windows wide. The gable is surmounted by a poppy-headed finial and flanked by three-stage weathered buttresses with octagonal finials, as per the front gable. There is a trefoil-carved panel to the apex and a large rose window with a sexfoil frame and replacement leaded glazing. A series of six lancets to the first floor sits on a deep moulded sill course and retains leaded coloured glazing, alongside two blind lancets. At ground floor level there is a central pointed-headed door opening flanked by tripartite lancets. The door opening is trefoil-headed with a bowtel moulding and houses deeply set double-leaf vertically-sheeted hardwood doors with iron door furniture and a lozenge-shaped overlight with leaded coloured glazing. The door is set within a pointed-headed outer opening with dagger panels to the spandrels, a further bowtel-moulded surround, and a hood moulding with figurative label stops. It opens onto a stone-paved front area. The remaining section of the north elevation has three paired lancets to the first floor with leaded coloured glazing and paired square-headed window openings to the ground floor, largely boarded up.

Historical Background

Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church was erected in 1874–75 as a memorial to the son of Alderman James Carlisle, who had died at the age of eighteen. Carlisle himself died on 25 November 1882, and in his will he provided £7,630 to the Trustees of Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church for the construction of a building to house Sunday schools, a lecture hall, a church parlour, and related facilities. Prior to the hall's construction, the church's Sunday school had been held in various locations including the church itself and the nearby Orange Hall on Clifton Street.

The hall was designed by James John Phillips, a Belfast-based architect who was also accomplished as a watercolourist and who provided most of the perspective drawings for John Lanyon, son of Charles Lanyon. The Dictionary of Irish Architects records that from the 1880s until the early 20th century, Phillips was the preferred — perhaps even the official — architect of the Methodist Church in the north of Ireland, designing or altering at least seventeen Methodist churches in Belfast and the northern counties. The building contractor was Henry Laverty and Sons. The design, as originally drawn by Phillips, called for the construction of a spire similar to that on the adjoining church, but this was never built.

The hall was completed in 1889. The Irish Builder records that the building consisted of Sunday school rooms, a lecture hall, a church parlour, and a cloister connecting it to the church. According to the church's own history, the building comprised an Assembly Hall of 60 feet by 40 feet with a gallery at the sides and end, off which opened 23 classrooms from both the ground floor and galleries, as well as a Minor Hall, a room for young children, cloakrooms, a Secretary's room, and a library. The building originally possessed two transepts; in 1945 one was converted into a lounge room with a separate entrance from the cloisters. The opening ceremony was performed on 23 November 1889 by the widowed Mrs Carlisle.

On completion, the hall was valued at £300 in the Annual Revisions. By the 1900 Belfast Revaluation, the hall was noted to consist of twenty rooms fitted throughout with gas installations, and its value — though exempt from taxation — was raised to £380. In the First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland in 1935, the building was rated at £680. The hall survived the Belfast Blitz of 1941 with only superficial damage; the church history records that many carved stone ornaments were shattered and windows in the church, cloisters, and Sunday schools were destroyed. By the end of the Second General Revaluation in 1972, the building's value had risen to £1,280.

Due to the construction of the Westlink motorway and the church's position at a major community interface, the Methodist congregation dwindled and the church closed in 1982. The Trustees had sold the adjoining hall in the 1970s, and it stood vacant for almost a decade before being occupied by the Indian Community Centre in 1981. The hall was listed in 1989. The Indian Community Centre has long served as a hub for arts and cultural activities for the Indian community in Northern Ireland, and has sought to include the wider community wherever possible. The connecting link building incorporating the church's cloisters is currently used as office space.

The building has been adapted for use as a community centre. Much historic fabric and detailing survives, and the building is of good quality and craftsmanship. The listing extends to the hall and its railings.